FourSquare in Hell: augmented reality games discover demons

Ars talks to the developers behind the recently released Paranormal Activity: …

Augmented reality games (ARGs) are often interesting in theory—and sometimes in practice—but just as often they require far too much work to actually be enjoyable. But with built-in cameras, GPS, and sensors, modern smartphones make ARGs much more accessible. You don't need any extra gear, just the phone you have in your pocket.

To help promote the DVD release of the second ParanormalActivity film, game developer Ogmento has released an iPhone app called Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary, which takes elements of FourSquare and combines them with the board game Risk. And then it throws the whole thing straight to hell.

Ars spoke with Ogmento CEO and co-founder Ori Inbar about the unique game and why the iPhone is a solid platform for ARGs.

Ogmento has been around since 2009 and has released several mobile apps and games. But since ARGs were, and still are, a relatively new phenomenon, the studio began looking for partners to bring the genre to a wider audience. With a combined box office gross of more than $300 million, the Paranormal Activity franchise seemed like a perfect fit. And not only because it had a huge audience; the themes in the films had a lot of potential for augmented reality.

"It fits very well with the idea of things that are happening in the real world that we usually don’t see," Inbar told Ars. "And with the special device, the iPhone, which has a camera and everything on it, all of a sudden we have a window, a portal, into that part of the world. It’s tying your favorite locations around the city to something that is totally fantastical and imagined and kind of making every step of our life a bit more interesting, a bit more fun."

The game utilizes virtually every feature of the smartphone. You can view a real map that displays the hell holes all around you; you can use the camera to scan your surroundings for lurking ghosts; you can even perform spells by drawing symbols on a piece of paper, which then come to life on the iPhone's screen. Combining all of these elements into one experience presented plenty of design issues that Inbar describes as "technically very challenging."

Sanctuary is also a massively multiplayer experience: some players can be demonologists helping to rid the world of evil, while others can become possessed by that very evil. This creates a constant battle as each side fights to take over areas. But the developers were also careful to make sure that the game was enjoyable for those who may not live in an area with a large population of other players.

"With some location based services and games, when you start playing it and there aren’t too many people around you playing it, it’s kind of boring," explained Inbar. "So the goal was to first of all make it interesting and challenging for a single player somewhere in the middle of the Midwest. But then when more people join in and you start to feel this global battle between good and evil, which is in the game, that’s when it really gets more interesting and more challenging.

"And the social aspect of it is critical."

Ogmento will be adding functionality to the game over the coming weeks, including a messaging system and additional paper-to-screen spells. But the game will remain iPhone exclusive, mainly due to the fact that the platform is "more lucrative at this point." However, the studio is working on an unannounced project that will debut on Android.

You can download Paranormal Activity: Sanctuaryfree of charge if you want to take it for a spin.

So, they're giving the game away, but the Apple environment is "more lucrative"? What's their business model? Ad-supported, or microtransactions?

It might be that they sold themselves to the people that make the movies as a marketing effort, and therefore lucrative would be the number of eyes on the app. the Apple App Store is still the most valuable place to do that.

So, they're giving the game away, but the Apple environment is "more lucrative"? What's their business model? Ad-supported, or microtransactions?

Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense at first. I'm guessing that they might mean that for X months of development they can reach X million people and developing for other platforms means Y more months of development for "1/5 X" or "1/20 X" million people.

So, they're giving the game away, but the Apple environment is "more lucrative"? What's their business model? Ad-supported, or microtransactions?

They want to easily target more than 3 million people.

Android may have greater market share but since you never know what hardware you will have you can't easily write one application to take advantage of the features you need. One person's camera may have a different resolution, the next may not have enough processor, The third may be good on both but has a poor screen so quality suffers. Targeting the iphone is like only targeting the Nexus S phones. you know what you are dealing with. The huge variety of quality of hardware that android has makes developing for it a pain in the arse.

Personally I would be much happier if HTC may 2 or 3 android phones and did them all well, one or two models for Samsung, Motorola, etc. Then they stuck to a ~12 month update schedule. clean out some of the crap and actually do the bug fixes that some models have.

WP7 may have issues with camera operation. The last time I messed with the API in order to acquire a picture you had to tombstone your app then load the WP7 camera app, then restore state on your app to get the picture. Depending on how this works that could be a PITA. I haven't touched an i phone with a 10ft pole so I don't know how they do it and this might not be an issue.

for an ars technica writer I would expect that you know the difference between ALTERNATE reality games and AUGMENTED reality games. You would then know that the acronym "ARG" has always been used for one of those two. Hint: it's not the one you are using it for.

Just type "ARG" into Google ( a search engine ) and you know what I mean.

I hope you rise the standard of ars technica and do some basic research next time.

Peragrin made some good points above about the difficulty of Android support at the moment.

That being said, I want the game to be available to anyone (anywhere) who wants to play it. But it is not entirely up to me.

I can understand that. The low prices of mobile applications (especially, as in this case, free) does sort of negate any desire to overcome challenges associated with varied hardware specs like game devs have done for years on the PC, which presents a sort of double-edged sword.

Can the author explain ARG first before going into article? We're not all super tech geeks...

An "Alternate Reality Game" is a game played out in the real world. Used to be done through automated phone calls, physical mail and such... you might play an ARG about solving a murder mystery where you get phone calls that are recorded messages from actors, letters in the mail with "clues," and might be told to be at location X on Y date at Z time, where you'd see actors perform a scene for you to learn vital clues from.

As the technology got better, some of this moved on to include email, text messages, interactive chats online, GPS "geocaching" of clues, etc.

Now, you can use "augmented reality" through cell phone cameras that overlay video or images on your screen, so you see the street but with monsters on it; they can use the GPS data from your phone to position the clues/monsters/aliens/whatever to match up where you physically are at that moment, and even alert you when you get close to an event.

for an ars technica writer I would expect that you know the difference between ALTERNATE reality games and AUGMENTED reality games. You would then know that the acronym "ARG" has always been used for one of those two. Hint: it's not the one you are using it for.

Just type "ARG" into Google ( a search engine ) and you know what I mean.

I hope you rise the standard of ars technica and do some basic research next time.

*facepalm* I hope you're a big enough person to apologize. This game is both an Alternate Reality Game and an Augmented Reality Game.

Its free because you have to go stores and what not to play. AR is cool but am i the only one that think 4 square (and all of it's clones and copies) are just pure sell-outs. The start of a new genre in gaming: sell out gaming? It seems so transparent to me - the money grab that's going on, i mean i know games are supposed to make money but now it's like going to watch a movie who's plot and story arc and characters are based on product placement...

Its free because you have to go stores and what not to play. AR is cool but am i the only one that think 4 square (and all of it's clones and copies) are just pure sell-outs. The start of a new genre in gaming: sell out gaming? It seems so transparent to me - the money grab that's going on, i mean i know games are supposed to make money but now it's like going to watch a movie who's plot and story arc and characters are based on product placement...

I understand your fears for this style of game. But I'd like to make two points. The first is that product placement or partnerships allow games like this to be free. Movie product placement does not lower the price of the ticket. Secondly, other than the relationship to the Paranormal Activity movies, there is no product placement in Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary and you do not interact with stores or other retail locations as part of the game. In that sense the comparison with FourSquare is misleading.

In Sanctuary a mission might send you to a convenience store to investigate a report of strange activity, but that's just because we use Google map search results to place missions that are relevant to your location. More often we'll place missions in graveyards, churches and schools because those are the appropriate locations for the story we're telling.

Connection with real-world locations does not automatically equate "sell out".

for an ars technica writer I would expect that you know the difference between ALTERNATE reality games and AUGMENTED reality games. You would then know that the acronym "ARG" has always been used for one of those two. Hint: it's not the one you are using it for.

Just type "ARG" into Google ( a search engine ) and you know what I mean.

I hope you rise the standard of ars technica and do some basic research next time.

*facepalm* I hope you're a big enough person to apologize. This game is both an Alternate Reality Game and an Augmented Reality Game.

No I am not. The article starts with "Augmented reality games (ARGs) are often interesting in theory—and sometimes in practice" and "Ogmento has been around since 2009 and has released several mobile apps and games. But since ARGs were..".

There is no single word in the article that hints at an ARG and the author clearly uses "ARG" for "augmented realiy game". The game is advertised as a game. No TINAG, nothing of an ARG. Facepalm yourself.

This sounded pretty cool so I've been playing with it today. It's actually been a lot of fun. Take that as tentative because I'm only a few hours in. But it does some interesting things that really make use of the whole AR and location thing:

- Players start as exorcists but can become possessed (with a little work, guess which one I went with). You can see the influence areas of other players on the map around you. Even if there are no players in your area, it is seeded with (I'm guessing) something like bots. Exorcist zones are more powerful, but decay with time while possessed zones remain static until assaulted.

- You can perform quests (really just clicking a button assuming you have the right type of mana) that are location based and have some flavor text. For example, when I was at lunch in a town near my work, it put related quests in the park and graveyard. You have to get within a certain range to complete it.

- Many actions give you a chance to get items. Most items have charges or a time limit and provide various boosts to effects, mana regen, or XP accrual.

- Leveling gives you access to new mana types and spells.

- Spells are cast with different types of mana that regenerate over time. You can boost a spell and have it cost less mana by putting a drawn pentagram in front of the phone camera. The app traces the lines as an overlay and then puts and animation on the diagram that moves with it.

It's a little bit laggy and there's only support for 1 symbol right now (pentagram). But it's a great start. It has me more involved than any other iOS game I've tried so far and that's without any other players in my area. For free it's downright awesome!

Stupid app isn't available outside US. Kinda stupid to have added as latest feature "support for international keyboard", really...

I believe we've made the game available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Japan, Brazil and Korea... though I think it hasn't made it to the app store in Brazil and Korea yet.

Is there a specific country you'd like to request?

Oh great

Yes, I'd like to have it available in Switzerland.

And may I take the opportunity to ask what's the rational behind limited distribution ? Do you require more paperwork per country or is it something like "we don't what to have to provide support in Swahili" ?

Switzerland, right. I'll mention that to the guy with the keys to the iTunes store once he gets in.

As for the limited distribution, there are a couple of factors. One is that we weren't sure people would be interested in a non-localized version in places where English was not a primary language. Another is that it is our first online game and when we mentioned launching world-wide in all countries simultaneously the server guys turned a little white. There is also lag issues we're dealing with even in the US, where our servers are located, and we afraid that it might be unplayable in more distant territories.

The current thought is that if we turn the game on in countries as people ask for it they might be more willing to forgive any hiccups.